Cessation

Every morning when I was a little girl, I would crawl out of bed, walk across the room, reach up for the door knob, creep down the hallway and into the living room, to find my mother sitting in the recliner with her Bible open in her lap. If she wasn’t doing that, she would have worship music playing and would be dancing over our brown shag carpet. My mom wasn’t a singer but she was a dancer and that was/is her preferred choice of worship. Even today I know not to call her around 10 a.m. because she is in her war room, pouring out prayers, taking communion and agreeing to be quiet in the presence of God.

What a blessing that was for me to see that every day. I learned, from her example, that taking time to retreat with the Lord is vital and a time to look forward to. And, as I grew, I found it to be a shelter from the hardships I would face.

When we faced unemployment and financial hardships right after our oldest was born, pausing to be with the Lord held me together. When we lost our son Ben, I retreated to the bathroom daily(the only room in the house with a lock on the door) to cry in His presence. We walked through a season of dealing with some toxic relationships, and pausing long enough to utter “greater is He that is in me, than He that is in the world”, changed the dynamic of my whole day. Likewise, pausing daily to be grateful and meditate on the beautiful things He has brought about, helped me to see that His goodness is greater than any fear I have and helped me to face the day with more confidence.

When we read the gospels we see that Jesus, the greatest man to ever live, regularly made time to be alone with his Father. Pete Greig says in his book, How to Pray “before launching out in public ministry, [Jesus] fasted for more than a month in the wilderness. Before choosing his twelve disciples, he prayed all night. When he heard of the devastating news that his cousin, John, had been executed, ‘he withdrew by boat privately to a solitary place.’ After feeding the five thousand people, he was understandably tired, but his response was to climb a mountain to pray.”

It seems that Jesus was always coming back from praying “in a certain place” or a mountainside, to be alone with his Father. It’s safe to say that Jesus was a man who prioritized solitude and prayer.

We see other examples in scripture: Peter went up to the roof to pray. What ensued was a defining moment in history when the gospel would be catapulted out of the Jewish world and out to the Gentiles. The apostles made a habit of getting away together. Gathering in someone’s living room, they committed themselves to intercessory prayer.

These moments of cessation resulted in some of the most powerful stories from the New Testament: walls shaking, epic escapes from prison, people receiving miraculous healing, and hearing and seeing the Holy Spirit so vividly that it appears as wind and fire. The list goes on and on.

Choosing to pause causes us to sink our roots down deeper into the rich soil that the Father provides. It’s an opportunity for us to know God and to be known; to stand stronger and more confident in who He is. Sometimes, we must make friends with loneliness and silence in order to hear our Father’s tender voice more clearly. We need to put down our list of requests and concerns and just simply listen; to be still before Him and wait patiently acknowledging his presence.

Let’s recognize, again, where we are and what is happening in our world: There is a global pandemic. We have been made to retreat; to secede from gathering and our normal daily functions and plopped on our rears at home. Maybe this is Him “making us lie down” so he can restore our souls, as the psalmist put it. Maybe this is a chance for us to remove ourselves from the chaos of our culture and to get a steady foothold on solid ground.

To practice this, I encourage you (and myself because it’s been a struggle) to put your cell phone on airplane mode, shut your computers, and find a quiet place. Slow your breath and steady those pesky nagging thoughts about your to-do-list and just be still before Him and wait patiently for what He will do next.

~Father, we know that your presence is here with us, right where we stand. We thank you for these complicated times because we know you are working in it. We know that this time of solitude and separation is an era of us being made to be more like you and to desire what you desire. It’s like the tide that pulls away from the beach, the calm before a storm, or the sealing of a tomb; we know there is something to look forward to. Lord, we submit to closing our mouths and opening our ears so that you can speak to us and say what you want to say.

Psalm 131: 1-2

“My heart is not proud, Lord, my eyes are not haughty; I do not concern myself with great matters or things too wonderful for me. But I have calmed and quieted myself, I am like a weaned child with its mother; like a weaned child I am content.”

Additional resources: The Lectio Divina prayer: https://downloads.24-7prayer.com/prayer_course/2019/resources/pdfs/21%20How%20to%20do%20the%20Lectio%20Divina.pdf